


breaking vows and fixing brothers

by brokenlittleboy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Men of Letters Bunker, mute!Sam, s10 fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-06-01
Packaged: 2018-01-27 20:48:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1722071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenlittleboy/pseuds/brokenlittleboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's back home and human after spending a week as a demon. Sam won't speak, won't eat, and jumps at the slightest sound. They both have new skeletons in their respective closets, but they won't be able to get rid of them unless they open up to each other. Very mushy with lots of crying and hugging. S10 intro fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	breaking vows and fixing brothers

Dean was afraid.

Dean was fucking scared out of his mind, if he were to be honest.

And this time (surprisingly), he wasn’t afraid of some monster or something snatching away his father/mother/brother, he was afraid of Sam.

Of how Sam would react when he said yeah, sorry, I never died, not really, I was just a demon for a couple weeks and I didn’t tell you anything about it. How you been, kiddo?

He couldn’t stop the self-deprecating smile from growing across his lips as he stood in front of the door to the bunker. No matter what happened, this wasn’t going to be some heartfelt, hug-filled reunion. They both were carrying more weight, more scars than thought possible. He knew well enough that neither of them would want to think about, much less  _talk about_ , the weeks they had spent apart. Or the moment leading up to that.  

Dean had heard everything. Before Crowley had come around, he hadn’t understood why he had. Sam holding him, desperately begging to him to wake up before breaking into choked sobs, Sam talking to him quietly in the car and promising to make everything right. Every word, clear as day.

But somehow the simple words “I’m not dead, Sammy,” wouldn’t come and his limbs wouldn’t budge. Hearing his little brother like that had broken him. All the words seemed so private, so raw—Sam was talking to him, but it was like Dean wasn’t really supposed to hear what he had to say.

Dead ears hear a whole lot more than living ones.  

Dean had vowed after Sam had gently placed him on his bed to get back to him somehow. Death and the veil and whatever was happening in heaven be damned.  

Before he could do anything (or not do anything, really) Crowley’s voice had started up. And with a sickening, low, feeling in his stomach, Dean knew all of his words to be true. The sliding of the black membrane over his eyes only confirmed it. Before he could do anything, Crowley was grabbing him, and he was gone, crumbling onto the floor god-knows-where.

Crowley had assumed Dean would be driven with bloodlust and anger and other similar demony things, and while he was right, something else was overriding Dean’s brand-new instincts.

_Sam._

He’d beaten up Crowley with the intention to go straight to his brother, but the city streets were alive and pulsing and so loud, and Dean couldn’t restrain himself. For five days.

Dean had done things he would never talk about again. If he thought he was going to hell before, now he was certain. There were now people out there, that because of him—

He said he wouldn’t think about it. This was not the man- the creature- he wanted to be when he saw Sam. He didn’t want to see the look in his eyes, the sadness or the mistrust, didn’t want to end up on the other side of a salt line. He could try fooling himself, but he was not Sam’s brother. It was time to try something else.

If he said he didn’t enjoy kidnapping that random guy off the street, he’d be lying. Thinking back on it made him feel ill, but lying to himself wouldn’t do him any good, either. He remembered being a demon. He remembered eying that woman on the street. He remembered how he had felt. But he was different now. Human.

He hadn’t been sure if his prayers would go through, being a demon and all, but Cas had showed up immediately when he recognized caller ID. “I thought you were de”- he’d begun, before reeling back, eyeing Dean’s true face with suspicion and disgust.

“It’s really me, and I  _really_  do not have time for this,” Dean snapped. “I have a man tied up in a cabin. I’m not going to be able to do it myself—I need you to cure me, Cas.”

Cas had been brute and seemingly apathetic, but they had gotten the job done. Dean had screamed and thrashed and cried and passed out, sure, but they did it. Afterward, Cas was himself again, apologizing for distancing himself but thinking it was necessary. Before Dean could breathlessly muster up a witty rejoinder or a thank you, the angel was gone again.

And now Dean had a body to bury and a brother to get back to.

Which led him back to current time, standing on shaky, a-positive blood type-filled legs and a human heart beating like the dickens. Shaking his head and sending up a prayer that he knew would not reach its intended recipient, he knocked on the door, and waited.

A girl, or a boy, or a  _coroner_ , thank god, hadn’t come to the door, but neither had Sam.

Dean tried the handle, and it opened easily under his hand.

With mounting fear, Dean stepped inside, and saw all the lights were off. Tracing a hand along the wall, he fumbled his way through the darkness until he found the breaker, switching the power back on and enjoying the familiar electric thrum as the base powered itself on.

“Sammy?” he called, heading down the stairs to the main floor. He slid a finger across one of the tables—a fine layer of dust came off onto his finger. The place looked pristine, untouched. Dean swallowed thickly, running a hand through his hair. There was no way any of this could be good. Unless Sam had left and found a partner and was now a lawyer or something, which he highly doubted.  

At least it didn’t smell like decomposing body. That was another ending Dean did not want to consider.

He turned to head down the hallway that led to his room and Sam’s before stopping short.

A man cautiously crept out of said hallway and into the foyer, freezing when he noticed Dean. A table stood between them, and they stared each other down, neither making a sound.

Dean hadn’t even recognized him at first, but standing there staring there and looking like a hunted animal, was his brother.

He was  _so_  thin. He was wearing one of Dean’s shirts. They used to look ridiculous on him, not nearly long enough to cover his torso and tight enough to squeeze the breath out of him. Now, though, it hung off of Sam, and his pants (probably Dean’s, too) had to be belted tightly to keep from slipping off his hips. Sam had shaved, but not recently—a halfhazard scruff covered his chin and his eyes were sleepless, hopeless, and sunken in. He was pale, and hunched over as if trying to disappear where he stood. His hair was messy and dull, seeming to gray slightly. He had a gun in hand- Dean’s gun- but it was lowered and his hand was shaking almost violently. All the muscle seemed to have melted off his body, turning him into a stick, a pantomime or a shadow of his former self.  

Dean took a step forward, and Sam made a desperate, growling noise in the back of his throat before clicking the safety off. His gun still wasn’t even within range of Dean, but he got the message. He stopped, raising his hands up.

“Sammy… Sammy? It’s me,” Dean began, unintentionally sounding his words out as if taking to a child. “You can do all the tests you want—blade, holy water, the works. I know it doesn’t make sense, but it’s me. I promise to tell you all about it as long as you don’t shoot me in the knee.”

Sam dropped the gun and stumbled forward, crying out wordlessly as he clambered around the table and gathered Dean in his arms, almost smothering him in his embrace. Dean would’ve laughed if he could  _breathe_. Instead, he pulled Sam impossibly closer, burying his face in Sam’s neck and inhaling deeply, the smell of Sam after so long better than oxygen. He curled a knot of Sam’s hair in his hand and enjoyed the feeling of them pressed flush against each other, wishing time to give them just a moment longer.

But Sam disentangled himself from Dean, pulling back and blushing. He looked down at the floor, not saying anything.  

“Kiddo,” Dean began, sucking in air, “we gotta get you back to full strength.”

Sam didn’t reply. His arms went around his middle, hugging himself and shivering slightly.

Dean slid out of his jacket and offered it to Sam. Sam shook his head vehemently, _stepping_  back again.

“When was the last time you ate?” Dean asked, sounding more accusatory than he had meant. Truth was, he was worried out of his mind. It felt like coming back home and finding a new family had moved in. Everything was wrong, dreamlike, and Sam wasn’t talking.

Sam blinked and shook his head. _I don’t know._

“You’re scaring me,” Dean managed past a block in his throat.

Sam looked up at him  _(up),_  brow furrowing. Then he looked away again, this time over Dean’s shoulder, almost apologetically.

“Well, whatever this is,” Dean promised, “we’re going to get through it. Together. I’m not leaving you again, and you make sure that goes both ways, you hear?”

Sam smiled, and Dean relaxed, not noticing how taught his muscles had been, how ready to flee he’d felt.

It’s the little victories.

—

All day, they danced around each other, Dean serving up meal after meal and speaking enough for the both of them to fill the empty air. Sam would reply, infinitesimally, but Dean always noticed. A slight inclination of the head here, a quirked smile there. Even if was almost unnoticeably, paint drying over cracked walls, he was getting Sam out of his shell. They found excuses to move around, cleaning the bunker or retrieving something or other. More than that, they found excuses to move around  _each other_ , brushing hands or shoulders or hips. Dean could tell Sam wanted to touch him, to make sure he was real, and Dean wanted to do likewise. He also knew that they weren’t quite there yet, that Sam still jumped at sudden noises and followed Dean’s every instruction silently like a dutiful dog.

Dean hadn’t brought up the past few weeks, and obviously neither did Sam. He didn’t mean to keep anything from Sam, not really—he just wanted to wait until Sam could hold himself up without tiring and get to sleep without crying silently and shuddering violently. He knew he wouldn’t be doing Sam a favor by getting it over with immediately, even though it was slowly eating him from the inside out.

Something had still been put back together wrong, or a piece needed to be replaced—Dean couldn’t quite describe the feeling, but he knew he was going to leave the world to its own devices until they were slightly okay again. It felt like they had been apart, literally or because of arguments, for a lifetime. He wanted to relearn Sam, to get the two of them back into a familiar, safe rut. He wanted his brother to laugh at his jokes and he wanted them to hunt something simple together, working in sync and reading each other’s movements, never needing to speak. Dean couldn’t possibly be himself again until Sam was better, too.

So, painfully slowly, he chipped away at his brother’s safeguards, going running with him and making him burgers until his arms filled out, even just a smidgeon, again. Sam’s smiles acted like a timescale or a sundial—they slowly grew bigger, and longer, and less hesitant, and Dean used them to track his progress.

But still he didn’t say a word and Dean couldn’t figure out why.

—

Two days into this new routine, Sam stumbled out of his room wielding a bottle of whiskey. Dean was sitting at one of the tables, a giant tome about angels open in his lap with a psychology book tucked inside. “Woah…” Dean said, watching as Sam practically fell into the chair across from him, “are you drunk?”

Sam ignored him completely, not even giving one of his Sam-style responses. He poured himself another shot and drowned it swiftly. His mouth pulled down into a thin line, and his eyes were hooded, staring at something Dean couldn’t possibly see. He looked up at Dean briefly, desperately wanting to say something, before scoffing and drinking straight out of the bottle. He blinked groggily.

“Woah, hey, slow down there,” Dean cautioned, frowning at Sam and dragging the bottle out of reach. “Something’s obviously bothering you, Sammy, and I know for a fact drinking away your troubles is a shitty form of therapy. You wanna talk about it?” he questioned, carefully shutting the book so Sam wouldn’t notice the contents and setting it aside.  

Sam eyed the bottle, but didn’t move.

“Do you want to talk about the past few weeks? We haven’t spoken about it yet, but we can’t just ignore it forever, buddy.” Dean tapped a hand on the table erratically, fearing the answer.

Sam’s red-rimmed eyes snapped up to his and he shook his head jerkily, a definitive  _hell no._   

At a loss for words, Dean simply nodded and picked up the whisky and the glass, taking it back to the kitchen and setting the glass in the kitchen and hiding the bottle where he had been slowly putting all the others.

When he came back, Sam appeared to be casually flipping through Dean’s psychology book, open to the part Dean had bookmarked about PTSD. The tear-track on his eye gave him away.

Dean misread it. “Hey, hey, hey, I’m sorry. I was just trying to help-“

“Dean,” Sam choked out, grimacing. His eyes went glassy, and he put the book town on the table, shaking. He stifled a sob, but another one followed it, and another, until he was crumbling, any strength he had for Dean sliding away in a tidal wave. Dean was instantly at his side. Sam clung to him, desperate, hands traveling up and down Dean’s arms, cataloguing him, before pulling him into a weak hug, arms grabbing at the back of his shirt like a life preserver.  

“Hey, you’re okay,” Dean said, for lack of anything better to say. He hugged Sam back, rubbing his back soothingly, trying to stay composed for Sam, even though it got harder with each cracked cry and keen being pulled from Sam’s throat.

Finally Sam pulled away—more like he pushed Dean away, burned, and backed up frantically, stumbling when he ran into the table.  

“Sam? Sam! Calm down!” Dean yelled, wide-eyed, making for his brother but stopping uncertainly when Sam backed up again. He looked like an animal again, a starved dog backing itself into a corner, and Dean’s heart went out to him. “I just want to help you!” he exclaimed, his own voice cracking. He closed his eyes, holding himself back. He opened them again, hating that they were watery. “Just tell me how to help,”

“You wanna know why I don’t speak?” Sam rasped, surprising them both.

Before Dean could respond, he laughed, a short, harsh sound too loud for the situation. “It was a vow of  _silence_ ,” he said, mouth scrunching up like he had tasted something sour. He smiled bitterly, shaking his head. “I promised to stay silent until I brought you back. I promised myself that I’d spend every moment in here, researching, until I found something. I know I failed you last time, b-but last time I didn’t have the bunker. Instead though, I ended up just becoming an alcoholic. I  _did_  fail you again. I just thought… it was impossible. You were dead. And I deserved it.”

Dean wanted to laugh, wanted to gather up Sam again and tell him quietly he never failed him, ever, he had no need to apologize or feel like this, that he was still proud of him, of them. He swallowed. “Then why didn’t you talk when I walked in?”

“Because,” Sam said, eyes shining and voice rough with disuse, “I didn’t bring you back. I didn’t even try. And then you just came in, and that passage about PTSD… I know now that you’re just another hallucination. It’s too good to be true. Since when do I deserve you back?” he smiled again, a small thing, his lip wobbling.

Then it was too much. All of it. All the fucking shit his little brother had been dragged through, his little brother who was probably the only person on this godawful planet who genuinely put others first, who was selfless to a fault and caring beyond reason, given the amount of times he’d been burned and cut and  _worse_. His Sam, who he didn’t deserve in a million years, who thought he was nothing.

“Oh, Sammy,” Dean choked, not bothering to restrain his tears, “God, I’m so sorry. There’s so many things I have to tell you. A lot of them… about these past weeks. I’m so sorry. I’m not ready to talk about that, though, and I know you aren’t, either. We’ve both been going through hell again, and I know we’re both not okay, but we can get there, okay? We can lean on each other. It goes both ways.”

He leaned forward and took Sam’s hands in his own, squeezing them. “But first, I’m real, you understand that, Sammy? 100% Dean Winchester, 100% alive. You too. We’re here. For now, we’re safe. And we’re together. I know I can’t fix it all, especially not right now with one shitty speech, but I love you. I do. Your real older brother loves you more than anything else. I came here, for you, through a bunch of shit that gives me nightmares. And you tried your best, you hear? You’re amazing. You have never failed me. Not once. You have been more than I ever could’ve asked you.  You grew up into a selfless, brave, intelligent man and I’m so glad I saw it happen. I am so proud of you, Sammy. Don’t ever forgive that. We’ll start little, okay? I’m real. You’re real. Everything between us is so real.”

Sam leaned forward, smiling with tears running down his face, and wiped a tear from Dean’s face with the pad of his thumb. He laughed again, and it turned into a sob, and then they were hugging again, warm and alive and wrapped up absolutely in each other.  

“You’re real,” Sam said shakily into Dean’s shoulder, “and I love you.”


End file.
